http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-determines-2014-warmest-year-in-modern-record/ Source:   NASA RELEASE 15-010 For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists. The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. ...Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades. ...scientists still expect to see year-to-year fluctuations in average global temperature caused by phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña. These phenomena warm or cool the tropical Pacific and are thought to have played a role in the flattening of the l...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/science/earth/study-raises-alarm-for-health-of-ocean-life.html Source:   By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times. For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them. “We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science ( http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6219/1255641 ). ...Dr. Pinsky, Dr. McCauley and their colleagues sought a clearer picture of the oceans’ health by pulling together data from an enormous range of sources, from discoveries in the fossil record to statistics on modern container shipping, fish catches and seabed mining. While many of the finding...

  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7533/full/nature14016.html Source:   By Christophe McGlade & Paul Ekins, Nature. For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt:  Policy makers have generally agreed that the average global temperature rise caused by greenhouse gas emissions should not exceed 2 °C above the average global temperature of pre-industrial times. It has been estimated that to have at least a 50 per cent chance of keeping warming below 2 °C throughout the twenty-first century, the cumulative carbon emissions between 2011 and 2050 need to be limited to around 1,100 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (Gt CO2). However, the greenhouse gas emissions contained in present estimates of global fossil fuel reserves are around three times higher than this, and so the unabated use of all current fossil fuel reserves is incompatible with a warming limit of 2 °C. ...Our results suggest that, globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per c...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/science/earth/restored-forests-are-making-inroads-against-climate-change-.html Source:  By Justin Gillis, The New York Times For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: LA VIRGEN, Costa Rica — ...this small country chopped down a majority of its ancient forests. But after a huge conservation push and a wave of forest regrowth, trees now blanket more than half of Costa Rica. Far to the south, the Amazon forest was once being quickly cleared to make way for farming, but Brazil has slowed the loss so much that it has done more than any other country to limit the emissions leading to global warming. And on the other side of the world, in Indonesia, bold new promises have been made in the past few months to halt the rampant cutting of that country’s forests, backed by business interests with the clout to make it happen. In the battle to limit the risks of climate change, it has been clear for decades that focusing on the world’s immense tropical fore...

http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/12/less-tasty-shrimp-thanks-climate-change Source:   By Puneet Kollipara, Science. For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt:  Climate change won’t just harm marine life—it could also affect how it tastes. A new study finds that as oceans become more acidic—thanks to the carbon dioxide emissions they suck up—they will sour the flavor of shrimp....  .

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/mount-kenyas-vanishing-glaciers.html Source:   Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt:  In 1941, an Italian civil servant named Felice Benuzzi ... captured by Allied forces and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in East Africa...faced Mount Kenya, 17,000 feet high...did manage to escape the camp and climb to the summit of the mountain’s third-highest peak. ...This past October, the English photographer Simon Norfolk spent 18 days on Mount Kenya, camping in an old mountaineering hut at nearly 16,000 feet... to document the gradual disappearance of one of the mountain’s many glaciers, the Lewis, which happens to be one of the most thoroughly surveyed tropical glaciers in the world. ...In 2010, scientists found that the Lewis had shrunk by 23 percent in just the previous six years. Worse still, a neighboring glacier — the Gregory — “no longer exists.” ...Our glaciers, we’re told, are ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/world/americas/lima-climate-deal.html Source:   By Coral Davenport, The New York Times For Investigation:   10.3 Excerpt: LIMA, Peru ...top officials from nearly 200 nations agreed to the first deal committing every country in the world to reducing the fossil fuel emissions that cause global warming. In its structure, the deal represents a breakthrough in the two-decade effort to forge a significant global pact to fight climate change. The Lima Accord, as it is known, is the first time that all nations — rich and poor — have agreed to cut back on the burning oil, gas and coal. ...The strength of the accord — the fact that it includes pledges by every country to put forward a plan to reduce emissions at home — is also its greatest weakness. In order to get every country to agree to the deal, including the United States, the world’s largest historic carbon polluter, the Lima Accord does not include legally binding requirements that countries...